Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Jenn Stephenson,



I am writing to appeal the dropping of CISC 203 (Winter 2024), CISC 220 (Winter 2024), CISC 221 (Winter 2024) and CISC 223 (Winter 2024).

In the winter 2024 semester, I experienced many uncontrollable personal events and multiple losses in the family. Which caused me much mental distress, and my diagnosed anxiety became a lot worse than it had been. At the time, I was struggling; I also was not in a place where I could look for lots of help. Unfortunately, that caused me to miss many classes and not be able to apply my total effort or attention to my studies in any of the courses I have mentioned. I did not drop these courses earlier as I had initially expected to be able to do the coursework, but a few days after the final course drop date is when the first family loss occurred. I plan to retake these courses and am enrolled in three of them this semester (Fall 2024). I, as well, am now seeking help for my condition. I have begun regularly talking to a psychiatrist outside of the school on a weekly basis, as well as being in contact with my family doctor and adjusting medication to try and remedy the situation and improve my academics.

In the future, I will talk to a psychiatrist regularly. I will continue to speak with them indefinitely as well. I am still communicating with my doctor to make sure my medications have the correct effect, and I have been referred to a psychologist to analyze my mental illness further and try to see if there is a better solution. I will also be taking into account the overall workload and making sure I can manage the course load, and if that seems unmanageable, I will be reducing my course load until it is manageable, no matter how long that will extend my degree plan.

I as well have attached an official document from my off-campus psychiatrist for supporting documents.